Stories about writing in Pakistan

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“Where are you going?” Zareen asked Ali as she saw him getting ready to go out.
“I’m going with Fahad,” he told her. “Faizan Sahib said I could come with him and sit in the AC since he couldn’t sit without it and it isn’t fair for Fahad to enjoy it if I can’t.”
Zareen couldn’t believe her ears.
“Are you out of your mind?” she asked incredulously. “You think I can pay for the two of you? I only send him there because he needs help. You are not going, and that’s that.”
“No Mama, I’m going,” Ali was adamant. “If Faizan ...

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The house at the end of the street was possibly one of the most spacious and attractive ones in the area. With its tall French windows, red bricks, and magenta bougainvillea covering the carved front door and climbing to the roof of the second floor, it was as lovely as it was mysterious. Friends of the owners were also aware of the fruit trees in the open, spacious lawn at the back.
The gardens had been lovingly cared for by the now deceased, green-thumbed Mrs Faizan. Mr Faizan did not have a green thumb and he was least bothered by the fact. His wife had enough of it ...

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6:56pm
“Will I see you on Thursday?”
“Yes!”
She smiled and hugged him before exiting the car.
As he drove away, he turned on the radio, and waited.
FM100.
“Welcome back, listeners!”
That voice. Why did she say those words just when he turned on the radio? Did she know that he would be waiting to hear exactly that? He felt a strange form of pleasure, and embraced it quickly. Wholeheartedly.
As the radio show progressed, he slowed down his car and parked it on the side of the road. And listened. As she spoke, rambled, ranted and laughed. He laughed with her, from the comfort ...

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“Manji di baoun waaj aandi… Bakhtu di jaag khul jaani.”
(This charpayi makes too much noise… It will wake Bakhtu up.)
Allah Ditta thought as he struggled to get up while making as little noise as possible.
He glanced back at his sleeping son. He bowed down and planted a kiss upon his brow. Rushing out, he turned down his wife’s offer for breakfast,
“Bakhtu jaag gaya te tenu pata fer…baharoun kha laisan kujh.”
(What if Bakhtu wakes up? I will eat something there).
These past few weeks had been nothing short of an ordeal for Allah Ditta. It was still dark out as ...

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“What is it like migrating to another country for work?” I asked a middle-aged, growing old, worn out man.
There appeared deep wrinkles on his forehead, deep like incurable scars.
His eyes blinked, as if trying to capture the escaping moments, and he heaved a cold sigh.
“What can I say?” He whispered in anguish.
“I came here to earn just enough money,
to run a home with dignity.
A home with my parents, brothers, sisters, my wife, and our children,
But I’ve increasingly fallen short of making that home,
Let alone running it.
Having spent some 15 years here,
In this foreign land,
Which is still foreign to me.
I would say–
If there’s no other ...

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It was very chilly for an August night. The moon played hide and seek behind pregnant clouds of white and grey but the winds were strong and the clouds did not stay above us for too long. We had travelled nights like these before and swayed many times during the course of the journey, but it had led us here and we were close.
The town we had stopped in was unknown. It once had a name but it had long been abandoned when the news of Partition circled the country. They were smart people or maybe superstitious for no one really ...

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A thousand stars glittered in the charcoal black sky. They were magnificent, almost magical. Rani loved the stars, the sky and the night. Every night she would wondrously gaze up at the sky and try to count the stars as they endlessly spread into the deep velvet of the night. But tonight was even better, mostly, different. It wasn’t usual for girls to sit outside a train station in their bridal gowns and stare into the endlessly starry sky. But Rani’s life had always been different and she made a bride the same way too – a different bride, a ‘runaway’ ...

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This is a strong year for Pakistani fiction. Two excellent novels, ‘Exit West’ and ‘The Golden Legend’, by two excellent novelists, Mohsin Hamid and Nadeem Aslam, have been published to great critical acclaim. Another, ‘Home Fire’ by Kamila Shamsie, is forthcoming in August and is already being endorsed by a plethora of writers.
Historically, the Man Booker Prize, one of the most prestigious literary prizes in the world, has been won by Indian writers five times. No Pakistani writer has won it and only three, including Aslam and Hamid, have been nominated. This year, with two strong and worthy contenders, Pakistani writers have a great chance of featuring on the long ...

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There are days of glee and sorrow,
There are days of wonder and freight,
There are days of worry, insecurity —
Thoughts that you’ve been victimised.
There are protruding, menacing, cutting eyes,
Staring.
They watch your every move.
It’s not some higher power or satan or big brother,
It’s just all the people who expect something from you.
And the days will pass you by. You will find new shores and highways.
You will look beyond the roofs of Karachi, and the markets of Lahore.
You will breathe in the stink of cities, leaving the Big Apple behind.
You will see the world — not really,
But it will be enough.
They will wonder where you’ve gone, maybe they really do ...

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O’ Father, your prophecy lives on no more.
The men with daggers for hearts walk the blood-soaked streets free and alive,
With eyes colder than the Kashmir winds and veins warmer than Thar, they thrive,
And all your children can do is close their eyes as the blood seeps into the roots, and from society, they drive.
The women afraid of walking into the vegetable store, of all ages,
Succumbing to the prying eyes, the filth that lay within the savages,
They yell and scream, yell and scream, into the newspaper pages,
And all your children can do is turn it over as a mere casualty in the inevitable collateral damages,
O’ ...